100 Creatives 2012 Julia Gabriel, Artist, Designer & Backpack Maker

Julia Gabriel is a self-taught artist and designer. She started out as a fashion major at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where she learned the basics of sewing. Soon after she transferred to Virginia Commonwealth University, where she majored in craft material studies. There she took classes in woodworking, glassblowing, ceramics and jewelry, but eventually focused her interests solely on fabrics.

After graduating, she worked as a gallery assistant at Quirk Gallery in Virginia and as a production intern at Glide Skateboards before finally moving to Houston. Now she runs her own design business.

What she does?
A few years ago, Gabriel started making backpacks modeled after old, abandoned buildings.

"I love the idea of this like abandoned building that's been forgotten, is now kind of hugging your back like a baby koala, you know, like a baby animal just riding along with you wherever you go and now it gets to explore the world."

"I just found that people love their homes and they love having something that is unique to them and shows their home, so I've been playing around with different ways of doing that." That's when she decided to turn her brand into a business and began her company Web site, Me & Lu.

On the side, she's temporarily teaching art to three-to-five-year-olds at Esperanza School. She's also been working as a social media intern for Houston eco-fashion designer David Peck, who she says has helped her see that fashion does not really have to be what she experienced in New York, and also just showed her how she can do what she just wants to do.

"He is so great and has such a big heart and is so talented. I love interning for them."

What inspires her?
In art school she noticed that a lot of her art was inspired by architecture. "I have always been aware of space," and part of that credit she gives to her dad, who was an architect. "When I was really young, I knew that my dad had designed our house and he put the windows where they are and he decided every single little detail, so I noticed every little detail."

Photo by Julia Gabriel

If not this, then what?
When she was in college, she was in a folk band that toured from New York along the East Coast through the South. She says that she loved that and she would love to still be playing in a band, and says if she wasn't doing this, she would probably get a little more serious about that.

If not here, then where?
Gabriel knows she doesn't want to live in Houston the rest of her life. She thinks about the architecture in different cities...cities that have really cool, interesting architecture or really historic architecture. She would love to live in one of those cities.

"I went to Spain one summer and loved, LOVED the architecture there and the people there. I would love to live in Spain."

Photo by Julia Gabriel

What's next?
"I'm really riding by the seat of my pants," she says. Gabriel could see herself continuing teaching or staying on with David Peck...but right now she's enjoying watching her business grow. She has begun to extend her business further by making other personal items for people. She recently took on a commission to make someone's home into a pillow.

"What I'm doing now seems to be working and if I can make my own business work...then awesome."